Building an HTPC

[toecheese]

Okay, I want to build my HTPC- I have a few ideas in mind, and a few requirements, and was hoping for some more info.

• I want to use my HTPC for playing DVD movies I have on my network server (I own them).
• I want to play DVDs on the DVD drive
• I want to use it for HD TV
• I want to use it for a DVR
• It must have component outputs
• It needs sound output via SPDIF or coax for my receiver to handle

So far, I have the following:

• ATI HDTV Wonder. This gives me HDTV and some DVR capability. It also comes with a remote.
• A second TV tuner card

I'm considering:

• ATI All-in-wonder. This has component out. Does it allow upconverted video?

Considerations

• I want a good looking case.
• I prefer AMD chips
• Do I need a dedicated soundcard?
• Should a case have a VFD? (do they do anything?)
• What OS should I run?

[Sonnie]

Looking forward to reading the responses here.

[Danny]

Okays

You will need a fast CPU - Above 3 Ghz Pref higher tho
Yes if you want multichannel sound my thinking is that you will need a dedicated sound card.
OS - only one I've ever even looked at is Windows XP Media Centre Edition - although thats not to say theres not any others out there

[toecheese]

Okay, so soundcard- most of them have a bunch of outputs, rather than an optical out- I want an optical out to go to my receiver. Do you have one in mind that would do that?

[Danny]

don't know really maybe this
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi™ Elite Pro
but I would probably go to a computer retailer and ask there

[khellandros66]

Toecheese,

Take a good look on Newegg.com

Go with

Silverston HTPC Case (make sure you have five 3.5in bays)
Antec Silent 500w PSU (no fans)
Socket AM2 Motherboard.. I prefer Asus and MSI
AMD AM2 Dual Core 2Ghz or faster
2-4GB DDR2 533
ATI All-Wonder PCI-E
74GB Raptor 10k RPM (boot and program drive)
Four 500GB Seagate Perpendicular HDDs (SATA3.0)
Auzentech Explosion DTS Connect Card (takes all 5.1 Surround and converts to DTS and outputs via Coax and optical)
Zalman 92mm 7000 Copper CPU HSF (very quiet)

This will all run you over $2400+ but it will be one heck of an HTPC.

For the OS'es I would get a copy of XP MCE and use FFDShow and such for the Media/DVR/Music player

~Bob

[bobgpsr]

At this date I would recommend a motherboard that supports the new Intel Core 2 Duo -- currently the best thruput/power/video performer. Also there are now a few Nvidia video cards that support HDMI. After a couple more months there will be more and I would surely want to consider using one of those for hi def video playback (esp HD DVD or BD shiny discs).

http://www.globalcomputer.com/applic...=CP2-DUO-E6600

HTPC's are currently in a state of technology transition. There are now reports of some people having both a HD DVD drive (pulled from a HD-A1) and a BD drive in a desktop PC with a HDMI video card and able to playback high definition in both formats using WinDVD8 (purchased from a Japanese website). The new Mandatory Managed Copy (MMC) soon to be final approved in the AACS content protection spec will allow you to create a hi def media server with storage on hard disk. 500GB USB2 or Firewire external hard disk drives would work well.

Bob

[khellandros66]

You can distress all day over chip desingers and who's is better. In my professional opinion the biggest and most cost effective way to improve performance is the amount of ram you use. Seeing as the ram que's upcoming data that goes to the processor, the more you have the smoother it will go.

Right now I have 2GB in my pc. I would recomend no less then that and would say that 4GB would be a big improvement.

Personally I don't care for Intel that much because in their past they have always touted the better processor and alot marketing to poise people into a mindset that they are the best. Right now the CoreDuo is faster do to its 65nm architecture. Once AMD rolls out there upcoming 65nm AM2 socket processors, like always Intel will be fighting for its crown...

~Bob

[bobgpsr]

I am entirely agnostic about AMD vs Intel. I have PC's with each. But I don't used either for gaming -- more for audio and video processing which currently does not benefit a lot from more than 1 GB of RAM, however games very much do use a lot of RAM and 4 GB would be best for gaming. The new Vista version of MS Windows may very well benefit from 2 GB RAM overall though. The Intel instruction set improvements and front side memory bus bandwidth have kept Intel a bit ahead in the past for doing video codecs - encoding and decoding - along with other video processing. AMD has done very well in gaming vs Intel. My opinions expressed above are from my experience and research. YMMV.

Bob

[toecheese]

Wow, great stuff guys.

I'm an AMD person myself- all my PCs (except an old P3 kicking around) are AMD. But, the Core 2 Duo is the bee's knees right now.

Cool about that HTPC case- that's the brand I've been looking at. AM2 sounds like the right platform for memory, or any of the newer Intels also support DD2 as well.

[chasw98]

toecheese:
You can see my thread about what I built and chose to use for my HTPC.

http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...html#post12122

Chuck

[aeon]

toecheese wrote:

Considerations

• I want a good looking case.

Have a look through the list of manufacturers here for some ideas of what's around.

[*]I prefer AMD chips

I'd only recommend an AMD chip if you are looking at the budget dual cores models (X2 3600/3800), otherwise I suggest going with a Core2Duo model (which also use DDR2, not that it's really any faster than DDR) from intel (E6300/6400) as they do better than the equivalent AMDs in the price/perfomance ratio.

Though unless you plan on using something like FFDShow to upscale DVD/TV then even a X2 3600+ would be more than enough.

[*]Do I need a dedicated soundcard?

You don't need one but it depends on how important sound quality is to you and exactly what sound you want to play.

If everything you are playing is either stereo or DD/DTS encoded then take a look at the Chaintech AV-710 as it will do bit perfect output and is cheap.

[*]Should a case have a VFD? (do they do anything?)

Yes and no. I've got a case with one and it isn't that useful as it's pretty small from a few metres away. Having said that I do have things like time/date and CPU Temps on it which can come in handy on occasion. It also does make a case look more like a piece of HT equipment IMO.

[*]What OS should I run?

I just run XP Home and then use a range of different applications to do what I want (main ones are DNTV Live for TV, Zoomplayer for all video/dvd and Foobar for music), but it's not exactly the most remote friendly setup ever. MCE is worth a look if you are after something that works with a remote, also check out Media Portal, Got all Media, GB-PVR for some free alternatives. MythTV is meant to be very good but unless you've had some linux experience it's likely to be a very steep learning curve.

[Sonnie]

Somebody has come out of the closet... Glad to see you finally decided to post aeon.

[toecheese]

Great info, aeon- thanks!

[khellandros66]

Had a chance to check out the Core 2 Duo and I amore then impressed. If intel keeps up this momentum then they can reclame their crown.

As far as cases, the best I have seen are the Silverstone, the LaScala editions are top notch. The next best would be an Antec Sonata but lose the PSU that comes with it as it is louder in terms of fs. Get a NeoPower 500 with a single 120mm fan.

As far as storage the Hitachi/IBM Deskstar 500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s are a steal.

DVD+R/W the NEC drives are like $30 and are nicely built.

Video can be handled by onboard (think 6150 or equivilent) until DX10 cards come out next spring, its a waste spending a penny on a DX9 one now.

To further soundproof the case and deadin it, get a few of the cheap mousepads for like $1 and 2-way tape them to the inside top of the case, maybe place one inbetween the HDD/DVD cage and the sidwalls of the case to quiet those down and eliminate vibration. If you keep good airflow this won't effect the temps..

~Bob

[nova]

An even better way to eliminate HDD vibration and noise is to mount (or rather suspend) the HDD in a 5.25 bay using rubber bands and wood dowels.

[toecheese]

Okay, with this info, I'm starting my thread on building my HTPC. Thanks guys.